I found an answer to my struggle with the Sabbath via John MacArthur.I believe I was being a little like the pharisees on the subject, so afraid to not do enough, I was doing to much. Not only that I was misunderstanding it's purpose for us since we have been saved through Christ.
I would encourage everyone to peruse his web page for great biblical insight. Here are the links to his sermon on the subject:
Understanding the Sabbath
Why Sunday is the Lord's Day
"Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you"
Deuteronomy 5:12
So, Jason and I have been discussing the Sabbath lately. The topic really took center stage this past Sunday when 3 out of 5 of us were not feeling well and we missed attending church. The question was.....So what do we do now? It was still the sabbath, a holy day, shouldn't we do something ...special?
We turned to the bible starting with the ten commandments and then as we were reading Isaiah, where we are doing our daily readings, we discovered the following:
from doing your pleasure[a] on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
or seeking(B) your own pleasure,[b] or talking idly;[c]
14then you shall take delight in the LORD,
(C) and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;[d]
(D) I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
(E) for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." Isaiah 58:13-14
This verse spoke volumes to us about the importance of keeping Sunday holy in faith to God.
But the answer as to how we go about it still eludes us. We set Sunday up as special by having the meals prepared on Saturday and the housework/chores done. And of course we have church and fellowship in the mornings, we've also been wanting to attend Sunday school. But what about when we get home? Or on days we can't make it to church? We have our nightly devotions, so that won't change but what else?
We know that we aren't to work or to do things for ourselves but for the Lord. Besides worship Him and having a day of rest we were thinking we should make a point to perform an act of kindness or generosity. Perhaps we could take a meal to someone, make a call or pay a visit? Another idea we had would be to catch up on our reading of books on theology or listening to sermons from pastors we like.
What do y'all do special on Sunday? Do you have any ideas, or verses in the Bible pertaining to this?
Hope y'all all have a blessed week!
I believe that we should honor God with our lives each and every day, but the Sabbath was originally designed by God for our rest after a full week of work. So while we worship and go to SS on Sundays (or Saturdays) our job is to get the R&R that God provides for us.
ReplyDeleteJust some thoughts that came to mind...
Barb :)
It's a topic I've been mulling over since a Bible scholar visited our church and talked about rest on the Sabbath. He challenged us by saying that the Sabbath was not list as a day of worship every week in the OT, but a day of rest. He said the Sabbath had feasts on them (usually beginning and/or ending them), but the focus was rest. He also said that we don't get much rest when we have worship on Sunday mornings instead of the evening before (like the traditional Jews did it). I would have to totally agree. Sunday mornings are anything but restful.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, for now we don't do Sunday School. For several reasons. One of them is that it adds too much 'unrest'.
I love how you are thinking this through, but love it even more that you are doing it through Scripture.
Wish I could have stopped and said hello as we drove through Waco to the conference. ;-) I'll post about it as soon as I rest up.